Ecological Corridors Protect Wildlife Movement and Water Quality in Michigan

This assessment report provides a baseline understanding of the current state of how land trusts are protecting water quality and is a catalyst for discussion, transformation and support for land trusts seeking to pioneer creative approaches to restoring and protecting Great Lakes water quality.

The guide focuses on two active geographies as models of where land protection and water quality are highly integrated pursuits: the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and the Great Lakes Basin.

Land trust staff and board members across the country are working with water in all quantities and qualities. Is your land trust ready to protect water using easements or other legal tools?

Land trusts with flexibility, expertise and ability to match different strategies with the water quality challenges in their areas are making a big difference, and this webinar showcases two such organizations.

Learn how your land trust can tap into this underutilized source of federal funding to protect land and improve water quality in your community.​

“Nature’s Network” is Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy’s strategic map for protecting land. By mapping the best areas to protect for water quality, biodiversity, and habitat connectivity and combining them, they could see places on the landscape where conservation could achieve many of our goals.

As the USFS's "Climate Change and Water: In Brief" summarizes, declining water quantity and quality are becoming common issues, especially where our demands exceed supply. Growing water demands then put aquatic resources and other services at risk because less water is available to sustain them.

This paper describes efforts to protect water rights on conserved lands in the West.